Here’s What Democrats Need to Do to Take Congress in 2018

Democrats emerged from the 2016 election confused, depressed, and virtually powerless. But it hasn’t taken long for them to regain their psychological mojo, aided as they have been by a combination of fear, anger, and Donald Trump’s inept first few months in office. “The resistance” started at the grassroots, taking visible form in protests at events held by Republican members of Congress in their home districts. After the GOP’s initial plan to repeal Obamacare was scrapped in March, the excitement spread to Washington, D.C. When Florida senator Bill Nelson, a mild-mannered centrist, announced he would filibuster the Supreme Court nomination of Neil Gorsuch, it was clear that Democrats had found a new spirit of unity and defiance.

The expected postelection “struggle for the soul” of the Democratic Party has now been replaced by optimism that the party might actually make a comeback in the next election. “There’s a storm that’s going to hit Republicans in 2018,” Representative Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, told the New York Times. “The only question is if it is going to be Category 2 or Category 5.”

Thanks to a highly adverse Senate landscape in 2018 — Democrats must defend 25 seats, ten in states carried by Trump — the House offers the best opportunity to disrupt the GOP’s congressional stranglehold. Democrats will need 24 seats to win a majority there — 23 if Jon Ossoff wins his special election in Georgia later this month. In February, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced it was putting full-time organizers on the ground in 20 GOP districts as part of a midterm strategy it calls “March Into ’18.” The plan will attempt to channel the resistance into election campaigns — especially in the 23 House districts represented by Republicans that Trump lost to Clinton in 2016.

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House Republicans will not give up their majority easily. The GOP continues to benefit from district maps aggressively gerrymandered after it picked up six governorships and 20 state legislative chambers in 2010. In 2012, the first cycle after the redistricting, the GOP won 234 House seats despite actually losing the national popular vote. In states like Florida, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, GOP House delegations continue to be far larger than the party’s statewide popular vote would suggest. Aside from defending its own seats (the National Republican Congressional Committee’s “Patriot Program” is dumping money into the races of ten Republican incumbents it perceives as vulnerable), the GOP will go on the offensive against ten House Democrats who represent districts carried by Trump. Another presumed advantage for Republicans is in turnout patterns: Young and minority voters rarely participate proportionately in non-presidential elections; the whiter voters who have been trending bright red do.

But precisely because the Trump presidency is not normal, Democrats have reason to believe Republicans won’t benefit from their normal advantages. Trump’s brand of conservatism, if that’s what it is, has turned off many college-educated white voters, who tend to turn out in midterms. That may pose a particular problem for suburban moderate Republicans, like Peter Roskam, who represents suburbs west of Chicago, and Erik Paulsen, whose district on the outskirts of Minneapolis went for Clinton over Trump by nine points.

Democratic base enthusiasm is becoming a tangible asset. Grassroots volunteer activity is up sharply, as reflected in the 2,000 canvassers working for Ossoff in Georgia’s Sixth District special election. Democratic fund-raising expectations were initially low after the 2016 results, when some large donors openly questioned their return on investment and demanded an “autopsy” of what went wrong. But there has been an astonishing upsurge in small contributions to Democratic and progressive causes, much of it online. Initial candidate recruitment for tough races is also looking good, especially among women newly mobilized for public service by the global marches of January.

The Democrats also have one trend on their side: Midterm elections are mostly referenda on the occupant of the White House. Barring exceptional luck or exceptionally good conditions, almost all presidents lose popularity by the midterms. Of the last 20 midterms, the president’s party lost House seats in 18 (the exceptions were in 1998 and 2002, when presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, respectively, had unusually high job-approval ratings).

Trump’s approval ratings are famously low for a new president, and if they continue to lag, Republicans are going to lose House seats in 2018. In 2006, the same George W. Bush whose party did so well in 2002 lost 30 House seats and control of the chamber after he limped into the midterms with a job-approval rating of 37 percent, roughly where Trump is today.

The steady trend toward straight-ticket voting means it will be difficult for House Republicans to separate themselves from an unpopular president. But it’s too early to tell just how much the taint of Trump will spread or if it will be enough for Democrats to win a majority. The possibility that enthusiasm, unity, a more favorable mix of voters, and Trump’s misdeeds could produce a turnout revolution for Democrats will get early tests this year in Georgia’s special congressional election and the off-year state elections in New Jersey and Virginia.

The March Cook Political Report race ratings list only 23 highly competitive seats, and 12 of them are held by Republicans. Cook shows 25 districts as “likely Republican.” Democrats will need to flip a number of the long shots to get to their magic number. But there is certainly a recent precedent for that. At this point in 2009, Cook showed only 23 House seats held by Democrats as being vulnerable. By Election Day in 2010, that number had swollen to 101, and the GOP made a net gain of 63, with 52 Democratic incumbents losing. “Tsunami” elections like those Democrats are hoping for in 2018 often build slowly. But across the country anti-Trump activists believe they can see big waves gathering. We may hear their distant thunder very soon. –Ed Kilgore

30 Seats the Dems Covet …

AZ-2ndDistrict(R)

McSally was the first female pilot to fly a combat mission, enforcing the post–Gulf War no-fly zone over Iraq in 1995. In 2004, she became the first woman to command an Air Force combat squadron, before retiring in 2010. She lost her first bid for the southeastern district in 2012, then won in 2014 by a scant 161 votes. Though she refused to endorse Trump in 2016, she has voted in line with the president 100 percent of the time. In Congress, she has taken a hawkish stance on defense and protected military bases in her district from budget cuts. No opposition candidate has emerged yet, though McSally has already faced town-hall criticism for her intention to vote to repeal Obamacare.

CA-10thDistrict(R)

Despite a fund-raising advantage over his 2016 opponent, beekeeper Michael Eggman, Denham won by just 8,201 votes, leaving Democrats hopeful they can flip the district. (Cook Political Report considers the seat competitive.) Denham rarely mentioned Trump on the trail, though he’s since consistently voted for Trump’s agenda. This Central Valley district is 43 percent Latino, so Denham, who was first elected in 2010, has always tacked left of his party on immigration; he’s now pushing a program under which immigrants could gain citizenship through military service. A spike in registration gave Dems a slight advantage in 2016. However, the nearly 20 percent of voters who registered as having “no party preference” skew conservative here.

CA-21stDistrict(R)

Like Denham, Valadao is a moderate Republican in a Latino-heavy Central Valley district. After working as a dairy farmer, he first won election to this newly created seat in 2012 (before redistricting, Democrats had represented the area for 20 years). The majority of voters remain registered Democrats, and 75 percent of the district is Latino. But Valadao is a confident campaigner and a Spanish-speaker who supports immigration reform. He also renounced Trump in June, earlier than most of his House colleagues, and was able to keep his 2016 race focused on the big local issue: water. Because of its demographics, the seat is a perennial target for Democrats. (The NRCC has listed Valadao as one of ten threatened incumbents on whom it’ll focus resources in 2018.) However, Valadao’s ties to the agricultural community could make this seat difficult to flip.

CA-25thDistrict(R)

In 2016, knight was considered one of the state’s most vulnerable incumbents. His race against attorney Bryan Caforio drew national attention — Paul Ryan visited the district to raise money for Knight; Obama appeared in a TV ad for Caforio — and outside groups spent a total of $5.5 million on the race. One $326,250 dark-money expenditure sent scores of canvassers into the street for Knight. Challengers are already lining up for 2018: Democrat Katie Hill, the 29-year-old director of a local homelessness nonprofit, has declared her candidacy. Caforio has said he’s considering a rematch.

CA-39thDistrict(R)

Royce, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has represented this suburban, conservative, heavily immigrant enclave since 1993. The district is diverse — 31 percent Asian and 35 percent Latino — and rich; it has an average household income of $101,243. But it’s also growing more liberal as Asian and Latino kids reach voting age: The Latino population has only grown by about four points since 2000, but Republican registration is down from 45 percent in 2000 to 36 percent today. Royce spent 48 times more than his opponent, a local city-council member, to win his 2016 reelection bid, making Democrats hopeful a well-funded Democrat could unseat him.

CA-48thDistrict(R)

Like Royce, Rohrabacher is a more hard-line conservative who hasn’t faced much serious competition since he was first elected in 1988. Rohrabacher is known for his admiration of Putin (he once teared up while giving a speech about Russian children). Though the district was gerrymandered to elect Republicans, the GOP registration declined to 41 percent in 2016. And while Democratic registration lags at 30 percent, “no party preference” voters (24 percent here) lean liberal. Rohrabacher handily beat his 2016 opponent, a former USC professor, without spending much. Clinton won the district in 2016 and Obama in 2008, giving Democrats hope a real challenger might do well. Harley Rouda, a Laguna Beach business consultant, and Boyd Lachlan Roberts, a real-estate broker, have already announced their intentions to challenge Rohrabacher.

CA-49thDistrict(R)

The wealthiest member of Congress, Issa made his fortune in electronics before being elected in 2000. As chairman of the House Oversight Committee, he held theatrical investigations into Benghazi and the IRS’s alleged targeting of conservative organizations. He’s consistently voted in line with Trump’s agenda, even as he’s tried to distance himself from Trump, calling for an investigation into Russia’s election tampering. He’s also been tacking left on climate change, despite being a longtime climate-change denier. Clinton narrowly won the district in 2016, the first time Orange County has voted for a Democrat since 1936, in part due to the growing Latino population. Doug Applegate, a retired Marine colonel who barely lost to Issa in 2016, and Mike Levin, an environmental lawyer, have emerged as challengers. The Cook Political Report has declared the seat a toss-up.

CO-6thDistrict(R)

Former marine Mike Coffman joined Congress in 2009 after two decades in state politics. He largely votes along party lines, opposing reproductive rights, Obamacare, and the regulation of greenhouse gases. In 2012, he hopped briefly onto Trump’s birther bandwagon. In 2016, Coffman ran “stand up to Trump” messaging in his ads, but he’s consistently voted with Trump’s positions. In January, he left a town-hall meeting early after being booed by constituents. Republicans have held the seat since it was created in 1983, but Coffman could be vulnerable in this Denver-suburb district with more Democrats registered than Republicans.

FL-18thDistrict(R)

An army veteran who lost both legs in a roadside-bomb explosion in Afghanistan, Mast campaigned on reforming Veterans Affairs and cleaning up the waterways of his southeastern district. (He also offered some conservative red meat like defunding Planned Parenthood.) During the campaign, Mast declared he was “unanimously and wholeheartedly” supporting Trump, and so far in Congress, he has backed Trump’s travel ban and made a dramatic pitch to his Republican congressional colleagues to unite behind the AHCA. The DCCC has placed Mast on its list of targets for the next election, but no potential Democratic opponents have stepped forward.

Fl-26thDistrict(R)

Curbelo’s district went for Obama twice, voted for Clinton, and recently underwent court-ordered redistricting that tilted it in favor of Democrats. In 2016, he went into the race with $2 million stashed away from his unchallenged primary race, while his opponent, former Democratic representative Joe Garcia, an anemic fund-raiser, had a scandal-filled past and set himself back when he told a room of supporters that Clinton “is under no illusions that you want to have sex with her.” Throughout the campaign, Curbelo, a self-described centrist, criticized Trump and was able to tout his moderate record, which includes voting against defunding Planned Parenthood and for climate-change regulations. The district’s demographics combined with a scandal-free candidate could put the seat in play. Inside Politics has called the seat a toss-up.

IA-1stDistrict(R)

When Blum narrowly won his first congressional election in 2014, political pundits considered it a fluke. The multimillionaire software executive was a right-wing Republican with no political experience in a reliably blue district that Obama had carried twice by double-digit margins. When Blum arrived in Washington, he made no effort to strike a moderate tone. He joined the Freedom Caucus and cast his very first vote against reelecting John Boehner as Speaker. In 2016, he was considered one of the most vulnerable Republicans in the country. His Democratic opponent outspent him by nearly $1 million. Still, he won. But registered Democrats outnumber Republicans here. In the next election, it’ll become a lot clearer whether this heavily white working-class area was merely disillusioned with the status quo or whether it has swung drastically to the right.

IA-3rdDistrict(R)

A former GOP Senate aide now in his second term, Young tepidly endorsed Trump, but he stayed away from his rallies in Iowa and didn’t attend the Republican National Convention. He told constituents at a Des Moines town hall that his previous votes to repeal Obamacare were “symbolic in a lot of ways” and that he did not support the AHCA. In response, the Congressional Leadership Fund, a Paul Ryan–associated super-PAC that had spent $1.9 million on Young in 2016, withdrew its support. Two Democrats, retired businessman Mike Sherzan and attorney Anna Ryon, have already announced their intention to try to unseat Young.

IL-6thDistrict(R)

In 2016, Roskam won his sixth term in this reliably Republican district, which stretches across the northwestern Chicago suburbs. Roskam hasn’t even debated an opponent since 2008. But he is also the only Illinois Republican whose district Clinton won. He’s consistently voted in line with Trump’s positions, is for repealing the ACA, leaned yes on the AHCA, and has said he supports the “underlying theme” of Trump’s immigration order. Tying himself to Trump may hurt him in a district that hasseen a lot of activism postelection, and Roskum has a reputation for being inaccessible to constituents. He’s held only one town-hall meeting ever. Lately, he’s been followed around by protesters.

KS-3rdDistrict(R)

Voder was just 34 when he won his House seat as part of the Republican wave of 2010. He’s since eased into the path of a steadily rising Establishment Republican. But in 2016, voters in Yoder’s district showed a notable lack of enthusiasm for both Trump and tax-slashing Kansas governor Sam Brownback, and Yoder worked to distance himself. Since the election, he has made an effort to score bipartisan bona fides, calling for robust federal spending on cancer and Alzheimer’s research and defending civil-rights icon John Lewis in his public spat with Trump. Yoder’s district swung among Bush, Obama, Romney, and Clinton in the past four elections, and the DCCC has already hired a full-time local organizer with the goal of ousting the congressman.

ME-2ndDistrict(R)

A Phillips Exeter and Harvard grad who made millions as a real-estate developer, Poliquin first won his seat in 2014, becoming the only Republican in two decades to represent Maine’s heavily rural, proudly blue-collar Second District. As a candidate, he had railed against Obamacare, but as a congressman, in 2015, he was one of only three Republicans to vote against its repeal. His first bill was co-sponsored by Democrat Keith Ellison, one of the most liberal members of Congress. In 2016, he did his best to steer clear of mentioning Trump’s name. House Democrats have put Poliquin’s seat on their list of targets, though so far no challengers have declared for the race. But it may not be Poliquin the Democrats find themselves running against at all. The second-term congressman has been mentioned as a possible 2018 candidate for governor.

MN-2ndDistrict(R)

A talk-radio host, Lewis was famous for calling Hurricane Katrina victims “a bunch of whiners,” alleging that single women “vote on the issue of somebody else buying their diaphragm,” and likening progressive taxation to chattel slavery. When he entered the 2016 GOP primary race, he seemed a bad fit for Minnesota’s second district, which had twice voted for Obama. In the general election, first-time Democratic candidate Angie Craig painted the shock jock as a mini-Trump. Craig lost, but an independent candidate took nearly 8 percent of the vote, more than four times Lewis’s margin of victory, giving the DCCC hope the seat can still be flipped.

MN-3rdDistrict(R)

A six-term chamber of Commerce Republican, Paulsen represents a cluster of suburbs and exurbs to the west of Minneapolis that constitute the wealthiest, best-educated congressional district in the state, full of the moderate voters who might have happily backed Jeb Bush but found Trump toxic. The veteran congressman avoided discussing his party’s nominee, saying he’d cast a write-in ballot for Marco Rubio. The DCCC is once again vowing to target Paulsen — and his strong backing of the AHCA might yet be a liability — but the congressman’s sturdy showing in November and his successful history in the district give him a substantial advantage going into 2018.

NE-2ndDistrict(R)

Before 2008, Nebraska’s Second District, which includes Omaha and its suburbs, had been considered a Republican stronghold. Then Obama pulled off an upset — the first time Nebraskans gave an electoral vote to a Democrat since 1964. (Nebraska awards three of its five electoral votes to the winners of its congressional districts.) And in 2014, Republican turned Democrat Brad Ashford unseated the district’s longtime representative, defying national trends. Viewing that win as an aberration, in 2016 Nebraska Republicans threw their support behind retired U.S. Air Force brigadier general Don Bacon. When the Access Hollywood tape went public, Bacon said Pence should replace Trump atop the ticket. But in office, he has voted for the Trump agenda 100 percent of the time. The DCCC has placed Bacon on its initial list of 2018 targets.

NJ-7thDistrict(R)

Attorney and state politician Leonard Lance swerved right on social positions after his election to Congress in 2008, swapping out career-moderate stances to protect himself from tea-party candidates in the primaries. That might not be enough to hurt him; New Jersey’s Seventh has been represented by the GOP since 1981. But given Clinton’s win there and Lance’s taking the heat of growing anti-Trump resentment, the district — home to Trump National Golf Club, the president’s planned burial site — could be in play. In February, over 1,000 constituents packed a town hall to demand Lance hold the president accountable, jeering when he balked at a question about Russian influence on the election. He also voted to keep Trump’s tax returns secret. Peter Jacob, a young Indian-American social worker in a district with a 19 percent foreign-born population, has expressed interest in running.

NY-19thDistrict(R)

In the New York State Assembly, Faso was known as a “militant fiscal conservative.” Democrats had high hopes for his 2016 opponent, Fordham Law professor Zephyr Teachout — but Robert Mercer spent big opposing her. This term, Faso put his name on an amendment to the AHCA that would have shifted Medicaid costs from upstate counties to Albany — potentially creating health-care havoc. “They’ve declared war on New York,” responded Governor Cuomo. Three Democrats have filed paperwork so far to run against Faso in 2018, though none of them has political experience (which these days could play either way).

Tenney, a tea-party-affiliated first-term congresswoman, was named the most conservative legislator in the state by the New York Conservative Party when she was in the State Assembly. So far, she has voted with Trump 100 percent of the time, and strategists think that she will prove too conservative for NY-22, which has historically toggled between a moderate Democrat and a moderate Republican. Tim Grippen, the chair of the Broome County Democratic Committee, says he has been approached by four people interested in running, including “a college professor, a respected assemblyman, and a Navy veteran with a lot of experience in Washington.”

NY-24thDistrict(R)

Katko spent 20 years as a federal prosecutor before winning this seat in 2014 — the fourth time since 2006 that the district had flipped. His opponent in 2016 was Colleen Deacon, a single mother from Syracuse who worked as a senior aide to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand and epitomized Gillibrand’s “Off the Sidelines” strategy of recruiting women to run for office. But Deacon struggled to gain name recognition and Katko worked hard to distance himself from the presidential candidate, playing up his party-line-crossing voting record (he would have been a no on the AHCA). Katko won easily, and while no Democrats have officially declared their interest in 2018 yet, Stephanie Miner, the current mayor of Syracuse (which she insists remain a sanctuary city), is seen as a strong possibility, with a war chest reportedly in the six figures.

PA-6thDistrict(R)

The sixth district’s House seat hasn’t been held by a Democrat since 2002. During the 2016 campaign, Costello was a fickle Trump supporter, backing the candidate in May, but then declining to go to the Republican National Convention. Since Inauguration Day, Costello has painted himself as a centrist, condemning Trump’s proposed budget cuts to medical research and public education (his parents were public-school teachers). He also sits on the bipartisan House Climate Solutions Caucus. After initially supporting the AHCA in committee, Costello was met with protests outside of his West Chester office. (Pennsylvania activists have taken to protesting there every Friday.) The district went for Obama in 2008, and Clinton won it by a sliver. That has the DCCC optimistic enough to include it on its “March Into ’18” hit list.

PA-7thDistrict(R)

Meehan, now in his fourth term, is considered relatively moderate in a district that is notorious for its radically gerrymandered contours. The Washington Post described it as “one of the most geographically irregular districts in the nation.” Democrat Mary Ellen Balchunis, a political-science professor at La Salle University, has tried twice to unseat Meehan, without success or funding — Meehan outspent her this past cycle by more than ten to one. The DCCC, which is targeting the district, hopes that a well-financed candidate might be able to flip voters turned off by Trump, particularly in more-liberal Delaware County.

PA-8thDistrict(R)

A former FBI agent who led the bureau’s enforcement of campaign finance, Fitzpatrick took over his brother Michael’s seat in 2016, after Michael stood by his pledge to retire after four terms. Fitzpatrick has held up his brother’s bipartisan record, with a planned vote to keep Obamacare and support of a promising, albeit vague, GOP-led bill to employ “American ingenuity” against climate change. Though the district contributed to Trump’s poll-defying win in Pennsylvania, Democrats expect it to remain competitively purple, in part because Obama barely lost there in 2012. Could an anti-Trump bump unseat the Fitzpatricks for the first time since the landslide 2010 midterms?

PA-16thDistrict(R)

incumbent Joe Pitts announced his retirement. Smucker was quick to voice disgust with Trump’s AccessHollywood comments, though he’s fallen in line since November, and when Trump first proposed the travel ban, he considered the executive order “entirely reasonable.” In March, 100 constituents marched in on an official Lancaster County breakfast to protest his refusal to hold a town meeting — four demonstrators even paid to get inside and disrupt the meal. Republicans have a historical advantage here, with a winning streak dating back to WWII. But a gerrymandering project in 2011 designed to bolster GOP support gave away key conservative votes in Lancaster County, and Obama took the 16th (which is now 17 percent Hispanic) in 2012.

TX-7thDistrict(R)

The Texas seventh is a longtime GOP bastion, reliably Republican since 1966, and Culberson, a tea-party conservative first elected in 2000, has pursued conservative causes such as defunding sanctuary cities and strongly supported delaying Obamacare funding in 2013. Even though Culberson held on by a wide margin in 2016, Democrats swept countywide seats within his affluent Houston district, which Culberson later told the Dallas Morning News was a “distressing trend.” This district saw one of the largest decreases in GOP presidential votes in the country (a double-digit drop from Romney to Trump). With an unpopular president and an increasingly diverse district, the DCCC is betting a strong Democratic contender might have a chance, which is why it’s added Culberson’s district to the “March Into ’18” target list.

TX-23rdDistrict(R)

Regarded as one of the only true swing opportunities in Texas, TX–23 flips parties in almost every election. Second-termer Hurd represents a sprawling district hugging the U.S.-Mexico border that voted Clinton. In his favor, Hurd, a former CIA cybersecurity expert, is a rising voice on defense matters. His district also has abysmal midterm turnout rates (30 percent in 2014), which typically benefits the incumbent. But with President Trump’s controversial immigration policies hitting close to home, that might not mean much; former representative Pete Gallego made a second run at reelection in 2016 and almost won.

TX-32ndDistrict(R)

Sessions is a reliable incumbent who’s been in office since 1997. In fact, the Democrats didn’t even run a candidate in the 2016 race. He occupies a powerful position as chairman of the House Rules Committee and has a strong foothold; however, Clinton took his district in the 2016 election, and recent town halls have showcased discontent among constituents (“Vote him out!” went one overwhelming cheer). Clinton’s victory and a statewide shift toward blue politics mean that some see a pathway to victory for a compelling Democratic candidate. As part of their “March Into ’18” campaign, Democrats will have full-time organizers on the ground there for the first time.

VA-10thDistrict(R)

A Georgetown-educated lawyer, Comstock made her reputation in the 1990s as a ruthlessly effective opposition researcher, helping to expose and manufacture Clinton scandals and pseudo-scandals from Travelgate to Lewinsky. In 2014, she won the seat vacated by her former boss, Frank Wolf, by a 16-point margin. But Comstock’s district has steadily grown more ethnically diverse, affluent, and liberal, and Trump’s candidacy posed a threat to her job security. Comstock announced that she would not vote for him. She convinced enough voters to split their tickets that she prevailed by a six-point margin (Clinton won by ten; Romney was the narrow victor in 2012). Democrats are already mounting a serious effort at unseating her. In response, the NRCC has made Comstock one of its ten highest-priority incumbents in 2018.

… And Nine They Need To Protect.

The most competitive House races with Democratic incumbents.

NH-1stDistrict(D)

Carol Shea-PorterAge: 64

Shea-Porter, who first ran in 2006 on an antiwar platform, and Republican rival Frank Guinta have traded the seat back and forth for the past four terms. The NRCC, in hopes that this volatile record will shake the congresswoman from the seat in 2018, named the First one of its 36 blue-collar districts to flip in 2018. Trump won the district, which has substantial numbers of Independent and Republican voters.

NV-3rdDistrict(D)

Jacky RosenAge: 59

Rosen ran a pro-immigration and “protect seniors” campaign to win the position vacated by Joe Heck, who lost his bid for Harry Reid’s old spot in the Senate. If the moderate Heck were to return from his failed Senate campaign to run in the Third, his name recognition and popularity — he won by 24.7 percent in 2014 — could negate the Democrat’s slight voter-registration lead in Nevada’s oldest, wealthiest district.

MN-8thDistrict(D)

Rick NolanAge: 73

A “Watergate baby” congressman from 1975 to 1980, Nolan returned to the House in 2012. In the last two races he’s faced Stewart Mills, the scion of a Minnesota sporting-goods chain, winning by nearly 4,000 votes in 2014 and by just over 2,000 in 2016. Once solid blue, the district has been feeling the populist wave spurred by job losses among miners in the Iron Range. After two close races, Mills is mulling a third bout.

AZ-1stDistrict(D)

Tom O’HalleranAge: 71

The district poses two major hurdles for any Republican challenger: its massive size (bigger than Illinois), and the largest Native American population of any district, a demographic that skews Democratic. But local Republicans are rallying around Carlyle Begay, a Navajo Nation member and Trump’s adviser on Indian Affairs, who could sway voters in a district that has gone Republican in the last five presidential elections.

FL-7thDistrict(D)

Stephanie MurphyAge: 38

Compelled to join the 2016 race after the Pulse shooting just south of the district, Murphy ousted 12-term incumbent John Mica. A “blue dog” Dem, she has been a staunch advocate for gun control, supported a balanced-budget amendment, and proposed legislation to keep Steve Bannon off the National Security Council. But expected NRA money in the GOP candidate’s war chest will likely help rally the Republican voter base.

CA-24thDistrict(D)

Salud CarbajalAge: 52

Carbajal won his first term last fall in a tough race to fill the seat vacated by nine-term Democrat Lois Capps. After a crowded primary, Carbajal faced off against Republican Justin Fareed, a 28-year-old former House staffer (and former UCLA football player). For a time, the race was one of the most expensive in the country, with outside spending approaching $3.7 million. Despite more experience and name recognition, Carbajal barely won and had to spend a lot to do it.

NJ-5thDistrict(D)

Josh GottheimerAge: 42

This North Jersey district hadn’t been held by a Dem in more than 30 years when Gottheimer eked out a victory last fall. The race against seven-term incumbent Scott Garrett shattered expenditure records and got personal (Garrett dug up assault allegations against Gottheimer; Gottheimer seized on anti-gay comments Garrett had reportedly made). Trump took the district, and a low-turnout midterm could flip it.

CA-7thDistrict(D)

Ami BeraAge: 52

During his 2016 reelection campaign, it came out that Bera’s father had illegally funneled money to his first two campaigns. (In August, Babulal Bera was sentenced to a year in prison.) Clinton won the district, but given Bera’s tarnished reputation and the antipathy from his own ranks (the state party hesitated to endorse him in 2016), some strategists think he could be toppled by a political newcomer without as much baggage.

IA-2ndDistrict(D)

David LoebsackAge: 64

In January, as Loebsack began his sixth congressional term, he was the most prominent Democrat left in a state that is utterly dominated by the GOP, and the NRCC quickly announced that Loebsack would be one of its top targets for the 2018 cycle. But he also bested Clinton’s total in his district by nine percentage points, dramatically outperforming her in several of the rural counties that surround his reliably liberal home base of Iowa City.

*This article appears in the April 3, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.

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THE FEED

1 min ago

Brave

Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) on Thursday urged President Donald Trump to stop disparaging the late Sen. John McCain, calling the Vietnam war hero “a dear friend” and defending him against the president’s criticisms. …

Ernst’s remarks came during a town hall meeting at a high school in Adel, Iowa, where several attendees voiced anger about Trump’s attacks about McCain. One attendee described McCain as a “genuine war hero” and called Trump’s comments about McCain “cowardly.”

“I do not appreciate his tweets,” Ernst said, when pressed by the attendee why she didn’t previously speak out more forcefully. “John McCain is a dear friend of mine. So, no I don’t agree with President Trump and he does need to stop.”

As we anticipate the end of Mueller, signs of a wind-down:-SCO prosecutors bringing family into the office for visits-Staff carrying out boxes-Manafort sentenced, top prosecutor leaving-office of 16 attys down to 10-DC US Atty stepping up in cases-grand jury not seen in 2mo

For Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers, the practice of charging to upgrade a standard plane can be lucrative. Top airlines around the world must pay handsomely to have the jets they order fitted with customized add-ons.

Sometimes these optional features involve aesthetics or comfort, like premium seating, fancy lighting or extra bathrooms. But other features involve communication, navigation or safety systems, and are more fundamental to the plane’s operations.

Many airlines, especially low-cost carriers like Indonesia’s Lion Air, have opted not to buy them — and regulators don’t require them. Now, in the wake of the two deadly crashes involving the same jet model, Boeing will make one of those safety features standard as part of a fix to get the planes in the air again.

… Boeing’s optional safety features, in part, could have helped the pilots detect any erroneous readings. One of the optional upgrades, the angle of attack indicator, displays the readings of the two sensors. The other, called a disagree light, is activated if those sensors are at odds with one another.

Boeing will soon update the MCAS software, and will also make the disagree light standard on all new 737 Max planes, according to a person familiar with the changes, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they have not been made public. The angle of attack indicator will remain an option that airlines can buy.

Attorneys for New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft and more than a dozen other defendants charged in a Florida prostitution sting filed a motion to stop the public release of surveillance videos and other evidence taken by police.

Attorneys filed the motion Wednesday in Palm Beach County court. The State of Florida does not agree with the request, according to the filing.

In the motion, the attorneys asked the court to grant a protective order to safeguard the confidentiality of the materials seized from the Orchids of Asia Day Spa in Jupiter, and “in particular the videos, until further order of the court.”

Two years in, White House aides are dismayed to discover the president likes lobbing pointless, nasty attacks at people like George Conway and John McCain

But the saga has left even White House aides accustomed to a president who bucks convention feeling uncomfortable. While the controversies may have pushed aside some bad news, they also trampled on Trump’s Wednesday visit to an army tank manufacturing plant in swing state Ohio.

“For the most part, most people internally don’t want to touch this with a 10-foot pole,” said one former senior White House official. A current senior White House official said White House aides are making an effort “not to discuss it in polite company.” Another current White House official bemoaned the tawdry distraction. “It does not appear to be a great use of our time to talk about George Conway or dead John McCain. … Why are we doing this?

When Mr. Trump was running for president, he promised to personally stop American companies from shutting down factories and moving plants abroad, warning that he would punish them with public backlash and higher taxes. Many companies scrambled to respond to his Twitter attacks, announcing jobs and investments in the United States — several of which never materialized.

But despite Mr. Trump’s efforts to compel companies to build and hire, they appear to be increasingly prioritizing their balance sheets over political backlash.

“I don’t think there’s as much fear,” said Gene Grabowski, who specializes in crisis communications for the public relations firm Kglobal. “At first it was a shock to the system, but now we’ve all adjusted. We take it in stride, and I think that’s what the business community is doing.”

There’s no specific stipulation that Milo must be heard, so it could be worse

President Trump is expected to issue an executive order Thursday directing federal agencies to tie research and education grants made to colleges and universities to more aggressive enforcement of the First Amendment, according to a draft of the order viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The order instructs agencies including the Departments of Education, Health and Human Services and Defense to ensure that public educational institutions comply with the First Amendment, and that private institutions live up to their own stated free-speech standards.

The order falls short of what some university officials feared would be more sweeping or specific measures; it doesn’t prescribe any specific penalty that would result in schools losing research or other education grants as a result of specific policies.

Tech companies say that it is easier to identify content related to known foreign terrorist organizations such as ISIS and Al Qaeda because of information-sharing with law enforcement and industry-wide efforts, such as the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism, a group formed by YouTube, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter in 2017.

On Monday, for example, YouTube said on its Twitter account that it was harder for the company to stop the video of the shootings in Christchurch than to remove copyrighted content or ISIS-related content because YouTube’s tools for content moderation rely on “reference files to work effectively.” Movie studios and record labels provide reference files in advance and, “many violent extremist groups, like ISIS, use common footage and imagery,” YouTube wrote.

The cycle is self-reinforcing: The companies collect more data on what ISIS content looks like based on law enforcement’s myopic and under-inclusive views, and then this skewed data is fed to surveillance systems, Bloch-Wehba says. Meanwhile, consumers don’t have enough visibility in the process to know whether these tools are proportionate to the threat, whether they filter too much content, or whether they discriminate against certain groups, she says.

Two mystery litigants citing privacy concerns are making a last-ditch bid to keep secret some details in a lawsuit stemming from wealthy financier Jeffrey Epstein’s history of paying underage girls for sex.

Just prior to a court-imposed deadline Tuesday, two anonymous individuals surfaced to object to the unsealing of a key lower-court ruling in the case, as well as various submissions by the parties.

Both people filed their complaints in the New York-based 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals, which is overseeing the case. The two people said they could face unwarranted speculation and embarrassment if the court makes public records from the suit, in which Virginia Giuffre, an alleged Epstein victim, accused longtime Epstein friend Ghislaine Maxwell of engaging in sex trafficking by facilitating his sexual encounters with teenage girls. Maxwell has denied the charges.

Rescue teams in Mozambique are struggling to reach the thousands of people stranded on roofs and in trees and urgently need more helicopters and boats as post-cyclone flood waters continue to rise.

Rescue workers, military personnel and volunteers are rushing to save thousands of Mozambicans before flood levels rise further, but with four helicopters, a handful of boats and extremely difficult conditions, have only been able to save about 413 so far.

“I don’t even know if we’ve made a dent. There are just so many people. The scale is huge. We’re busy doing the best we can,” said Travis Trower from Rescue South Africa, adding that a lot of people had been washed away but those still alive, whom he had seen from helicopter flights, were in a very bad state.

More than 400 sq kilometres (150 sq miles) in the region are flooded, according to satellite images taken by the EU, and in some places the water is six metres (19ft) deep. At least 600,000 people are affected, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), ranging from those whose lives are in immediate danger to those who need other kinds of aid.

About 40 percent of the District’s lower-income neighborhoods experienced gentrification between 2000 and 2013, giving the city the greatest “intensity of gentrification” of any in the country, according to a studyreleased Tuesday by the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.

The District also saw the most African American residents — more than 20,000 — displaced from their neighborhoods during that time, mostly by affluent, white newcomers, researchers said. The District and Philadelphia were most “notable” for displacements of black residents, while Denver and Austin had the most Hispanic residents move. Nationwide, nearly 111,000 African Americans and more than 24,000 Hispanics moved out of gentrifying neighborhoods, the study found.

In an essay accompanying the study, Sabiyha Prince of Empower DC said the city “rolled out the proverbial red carpet” for tens of thousands of new residents in the past five years. But the new dog parks, bike lanes, condominiums and pricey restaurants that followed, she said, are not viewed as improvements by long-term residents, who can feel isolated because of losing neighbors, social networks and local businesses. Prince, an anthropologist, said longtime Washingtonians tell stories of “alienation and vulnerability in the nation’s capital.”